


Little Bird

by thebasement_archivist



Category: The X-Files
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2001-08-31
Updated: 2001-08-31
Packaged: 2018-11-20 14:36:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11337510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebasement_archivist/pseuds/thebasement_archivist
Summary: Note from alice ttlg, the archivist: this story was originally archived atThe Basement, which moved to the AO3 to ensure the stories are always available and so that authors may have complete control of their own works. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in June 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address onThe Basement's collection profile.





	Little Bird

**Author's Note:**

> Note from alice ttlg, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Basement](http://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Basement), which moved to the AO3 to ensure the stories are always available and so that authors may have complete control of their own works. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in June 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [The Basement's collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/thebasement/profile).

 

Little Bird by Skinner Box

Little Bird  
by Skinner Box  
Email:   
Rating: PG-13  
Pairing: Spender/Krycek  
Spoilers/Timeline: none to speak of  
Disclaimer: The X-files and these characters belong to Chris Carter and Fox Broadcasting. I play with them out of love and for no profit.  
Note: Thank you to M. T. for getting me thinking about finches and then betaing the result (all remaining infelicities are mine, of course) and to drovar and the fine folk of the Spenderfic list.  
Archive: please ask first

* * *

Little Bird  
by Skinner Box  
(For M. T.)

He's thinking about the birds. 

Alex is thinking about the birds.

He's Alex.

There was this lady. Older, grey haired, with wide puffy cheeks. She had an aviary in her sunroom, a big big mesh cage full of finches. Tiny little birds with perfect orange triangles for beaks. He remembers them swooping back and forth between branches wedged into the corners, matchstick toes lined up on the ash-grey bark. They were awfully quiet for birds, he remembers thinking, just the odd little chirrup now and again. Swoop and cheep. Swoop and cheep. And he remembers them setting to with an awful din the moment he thought it.

It's funny that he can remember so much: the yellow and cream of their plumage, the exact spacing of the squares in the wire mesh, but he can't remember who the lady was, or how he came to be in her sunroom. Can't even remember if he was man or boy or that awkward place in between.

His logical mind tells him it must have been one of the ladies Mama cleaned house for and he must have been young enough that he couldn't stay home alone, but something seems off about that. Not quite right. Cheep and swoop, swoop and cheep, and then that awful cheep cheep cheep insistent cheep cheep-

And there are white coats all around him and he hears a faraway male voice shout, "clear!" And the finches go back to cheep and swoop, swoop and cheep, fluffy little breasts of soft soft grey.

Grey.

Soft.

Mist? Cloud? No. Smoke. But it's okay- soft and pretty and not so hard to breathe as one might think. 

Something. Not quite visible. Dark column, resolving itself, and he thinks he knows what it is. Yes. That statue of St. Francis from outside the church by Clifton Park. He wanted to look at the man with all the birds, but Papa wouldn't take him into the courtyard to see. Papa was afraid of churches. 

He's shocked back into a man's eye view as the figure resolves itself. Not Francis of Assisi. It's Jeffrey Spender, coming towards him, hand outstretched, tiny puff of grey and yellow and equilateral popsicle orange triangle beak clinging to his finger.

'Fly away,' Alex wants to tell it, 'fly away!'

But it won't and he can't. It's clinging so tight to that blunt finger there are dents in the callused flesh. It's hanging on. The stupid goddamn bird is hanging on.

The End

  
Archived: July 04, 2001 


End file.
